CHAPTER I

“While the Heart Beats Young”

The scorching heat of a midsummer day beat mercilessly upon the earth. Travelers on the dusty roads, toilers in the fields, and others exposed to the rays of the sun, thought yearningly of cooling winds and running streams. They would have looked with envy upon the scene being enacted in one of the small streams of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. There a little red-haired girl, barefooted, her short gingham skirt tucked up unevenly here and there, was wading in the cool, shallow waters of a creek that was tree-bordered and willow-arched. Her clear, rippling laughter of sheer joy broke through the Sabbatical calm of that quiet spot and echoed up and down the meadow as she splashed about in the brook.

“Ach,” she said aloud, “this here’s the best fun! Abody wouldn’t hardly know it’s so powerful hot out to-day. All these trees round the crick makes it cool. I like wadin’ and pickin’ up the pebbles, some of ’em washed round and smooth like little white soup beans--ach, I got to watch me,” she exclaimed, laughing, as she made a quick movement to retain her equilibrium. “The big stones are slippery from bein’ in the water. Next I know I’ll sit right down in the crick. Then wouldn’t Phil be ready to laugh at me! It wonders me now where he is. I wish he’d come once and we’d have some fun.”

As if in answer to her wish a boyish whistle rang out, followed by a long-drawn “Oo-oh, Manda, where are you?”

“Here. Wadin’ in the crick,” she called. “Come on in.”